Home Inspector in Shelby Township, MI

PreFlight is based right here in Shelby Township and works it street by street. The township grew in waves, and you can read those waves in the housing stock: 1970s and '80s colonials and quad-levels south of 23 Mile, a heavy build-out of larger subdivisions through the 1990s and early 2000s, and newer construction pushing north toward 25 and 26 Mile. Each era brings a different set of problems to the inspection.

The 1970s and '80s homes are now at the age where the second roof is failing, the original furnace and water heater are well past design life, and aluminum branch wiring shows up often enough that I check for it on every home from that period. The 1990s and 2000s subdivisions look newer but are hitting their own wall — original builder-grade windows losing seals, first-generation high-efficiency furnaces reaching end of life, and Poly-B or early PEX supply lines depending on the builder.

Then there's the ground itself. Macomb County sits on heavy clay. Clay holds water, expands, and contracts, and it is unforgiving of poor grading and short downspout extensions. A large share of the wet basements I find in Shelby Township are not foundation failures at all — they're drainage problems the seller could have fixed with $200 of downspout extension and a weekend of regrading.

1970s and early 1980s colonials, quads, and split-levels

The oldest large cohort sits south of 23 Mile and along Auburn, Ryan, and Utica Road. Homes from the early part of this window can still carry aluminum branch wiring, which ended around 1973, and Federal Pacific Stab-Lok or Zinsco panels, which did not. After 1978 the supply piping can be polybutylene. Quads and split-levels also hand me a crawlspace under the mid-level and a slab under the family room, and those two spaces are where I find the moisture and the ductwork problems that never show up on the main floor. I identify the wire jacket and terminations at the panel, read the supply piping at the water heater and under every sink, and put the thermal camera on the slab-level walls where the grade outside is high.

Late 1980s and 1990s subdivisions north of Hall Road

The subdivision push between 23 and 25 Mile filled in fast, and the average single-family home here now runs about 2,300 square feet by listing data. Homes of this era commonly have polybutylene until 1995, hardboard siding that swells at the bottom edge, builder-grade double-pane windows with failed seals, and a first-generation high-efficiency furnace that is on borrowed time. Where the ground rolls toward River Bends and Stony Creek, walkout and daylight basements are common, and a walkout on clay is a drainage system first and a house second. I check the sump, the footing-drain discharge, and the retaining walls, and I look for the staining line that tells me how high the water table sat last spring.

2000s to today: Preston Corners, Beacon Pointe, Legacy Village, Encore of Shelby

Lombardo, Pulte, and AP Builders are all active in the township, and the villa and ranch-condo product in Preston Corners and Legacy Village is selling to buyers who assume new means finished. Homes from this era commonly show negative grading after backfill settles, missing kick-out flashing where a roof meets a wall, condensate lines from high-efficiency furnaces draining into nothing, bath fans terminating in the attic, and punch-list items nobody closed. On a site condo or villa, I also read the master deed with you, because the line between what the association maintains and what you own decides who pays for the roof. A pre-drywall inspection and an 11-month warranty inspection are the two visits I push hardest on new construction.

Manufactured homes: 1,568 of them in the township

Shelby Township has several manufactured-home communities, and these homes have their own inspection. I locate the HUD data plate and certification label, check the pier and tie-down system under the home for settlement and corrosion, look at the skirting and ventilation, trace the crossover duct between sections on a double-wide, and check the marriage line at the roof and floor. Roof-overs, added porches, and site-built additions that lean on the manufactured structure are the most common problems, along with polybutylene and undersized water heaters in older units. Manufactured home inspection is a listed service, priced separately, and the report reads exactly like the one I write for a site-built house.

Macomb County is EPA Radon Zone 3, the lowest-potential category. The county health department estimates 5 to 10 percent of homes test above the EPA action level of 4.0 pCi/L, and the EGLE map of actual test results puts Macomb at about 11 percent. In Shelby Township the ground changes character from the flat clay near 22 Mile to the rolling glacial soils near Stony Creek, and radon follows the soil, not the ZIP code. The only way to know is a 48-hour continuous-monitor test in the lowest livable level, which runs during the inspection window for $175. On a walkout or a finished basement, order it.